April 2011

decorating easter eggs—our own pretty good idea

the easter egg decorating experiment. Our egg decorating has never been so much fun or so magically surprising. We always relish Easter egg dyeing time each spring. We have colored them with natural dyes made ourselves with onion skins, cabbage, and tumeric—making beautiful deep, earthy hues. We once played with Ukranian egg dyes. Another year, wrapping rubber bands around boiled eggs before dipping them in the vibrant dyes left fun stripes zig-zagging across our Easter eggs. Drawing with crayons on our eggs before dyeing revealed beautiful wax-resist artwork. So many pretty ways to decorate Easter eggs. But this year, we wanted to try our own way of decorating Easter eggs. One that has probably never ever been tried before. An egg decorating experiment. Some experiments work. Others do not. Our egg decorating experiment worked...absolutelybeautifully.

decorating eggs with melted crayonsa wordplayhouse® original idea

1 Boil eggs and let cool. 2 Unwrap broken crayons*. 3 Place the crayons in cupcake liners, filling about 1/3 full. 4 Place filled cupcake liners on a cookie sheet and place in oven or toaster oven. 5 Bake at 350° until crayons melt—about 5 minutes. 6 Carefully remove muffin liners from cookie sheet and set on a level surface protected with wax paper or newspapers. 7 Roll the eggs in the melted wax before it cools and hardens. Wax hardens on the egg quickly so the eggs can be set down to dry just a few moments after rolling them in the warm wax. We placed them in the empty egg carton while we decorated the remaining eggs.

*Our experiment showed us that only a few dark crayons will quickly overpower the remaining colors when melted. Use mainly light colors like pinks, red, and yellows and just a few blues and purples. Leave the crayons in large chunks. Do not mix the melted wax before rolling your eggs. The unmixed colors are what give the decorated eggs their unique bright swirls.

The most fun part of decorating Easter eggs with crayon wax? The extra crayon wax hardened in the paper liners and we had homemade crayons for more crayon wax decorating fun on paper. You can color with your Easter eggs too!

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decorating easter eggs—our own pretty good idea

the easter egg decorating experiment. Our egg decorating has never been so much fun or so magically surprising. We always relish Easter egg dyeing time each spring. We have colored them with natural dyes made ourselves with onion skins, cabbage, and tumeric—making beautiful deep, earthy hues. We once played with Ukranian egg dyes. Another year, wrapping rubber bands around boiled eggs before dipping them in the vibrant dyes left fun stripes zig-zagging across our Easter eggs. Drawing with crayons on our eggs before dyeing revealed beautiful wax-resist artwork. So many pretty ways to decorate Easter eggs. But this year, we wanted to try our own way of decorating Easter eggs. One that has probably never ever been tried before. An egg decorating experiment. Some experiments work. Others do not. Our egg decorating experiment worked...absolutelybeautifully.

decorating eggs with melted crayonsa wordplayhouse® original idea

1 Boil eggs and let cool. 2 Unwrap broken crayons*. 3 Place the crayons in cupcake liners, filling about 1/3 full. 4 Place filled cupcake liners on a cookie sheet and place in oven or toaster oven. 5 Bake at 350° until crayons melt—about 5 minutes. 6 Carefully remove muffin liners from cookie sheet and set on a level surface protected with wax paper or newspapers. 7 Roll the eggs in the melted wax before it cools and hardens. Wax hardens on the egg quickly so the eggs can be set down to dry just a few moments after rolling them in the warm wax. We placed them in the empty egg carton while we decorated the remaining eggs.

*Our experiment showed us that only a few dark crayons will quickly overpower the remaining colors when melted. Use mainly light colors like pinks, red, and yellows and just a few blues and purples. Leave the crayons in large chunks. Do not mix the melted wax before rolling your eggs. The unmixed colors are what give the decorated eggs their unique bright swirls.

The most fun part of decorating Easter eggs with crayon wax? The extra crayon wax hardened in the paper liners and we had homemade crayons for more crayon wax decorating fun on paper. You can color with your Easter eggs too!